The real stories from inside the F1 paddock

Full Bull

Sebastian Vettel completed qualifying having set the fastest time in every session in Austin. The German beat Lewis Hamilton to pole position by a tenth of a second, with Mark Webber third and Romain Grosjean fourth, but the Frenchman has a penalty for a gearbox change and so will start ninth. Kimi Raikkonen thus moves up to fourth ahead of Michael Schumacher, Felipe Massa, Nico Hulkenberg and Fernando Alonso. The top 10 was completed by Pastor Maldonado.

Back in the day, Formula 1 starts at the Nurburgring used to be four abreast, other circuits three, even Monaco. Such is progress that that isn’t safe any more, so now we have staggered rows of one. What I don’t get is that even when the track is so slippery that starting third is going to be better than starting second, they still stagger the grid. When there is a clear disadvantage to the even side, why not reduce the stagger, or even eliminate it altogether so that first and second start alongside one another? There would still be an appropriate advantage to being first rather than second, but at least the even-numbered starters would have a better chance of beating the man behind into the first corner.

That’s wonderful to know Joe, but up here in Canada the GP in Austin is irrelevant. The qualifying was live on TSN2, but they only have 3 million subscribers across Canada, the race itself will be on at 11.30PM tonight. On the french language RDS where qualy and the race are always live, qualifying was at half past midnight this morning and the race is at 10AM Monday morning! Even NASCAR’s final race is on TSN2, on TSN1 it’s football and more football. That really is an indication of how far interest in motor racing has slipped in the mainstream media here, I tell you, it’s a lost sport now.
Of course in the US the host broadcaster is SPEED which is in comparitavely few homes and I believe that Varsha, Hobbs and Matchett are, as usual, doing their coverage/commentary from the studio in Charlotte.
What a WONDERFUL way to get exposure for US Formula 1 !!!